LETTER - Dismissing impact of gas prices shows elitist attitude

Friday

May 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMMay 30, 2008 at 3:32 PM

Tom Wiersma

The May 21 letter by one Robert Vanderkamp questioning whether gasoline prices really are too high is one I had to respond to. If he got involved with what is really going on in this area, he would know that for any new couple getting married and planning a family, both need to work for a fairly decent wage, not the standard $10 starting pay for most jobs in the area. My son, who is a welder and worked for exactly $10 an hour, took home, after all was taken out, $292 for a week. Multiply that times 4 to get $1,168 a month. Multiply the $37 a week Mr. Vanderkamp says we should be paying for gas times 4 gets you $148 a month. Subtracting that from the already paltry sum of $1,168 leaves one $1,002 to pay for one’s food, shelter and utilities.

Perhaps the writer comes from one of those families with enough money to just change cars in the middle of a sudden crunch. Most people don’t. They are stuck with whatever they had. The assumptions in Mr. Vanderkamp’s letter seem to be based on an income level, which he doesn’t mention, in the $70,000-$90,000 range, which over half the people working in Holland can only dream about.

I agree that people need to cut their use of gas whenever possible, but to say that it is a bargain at $4 a gallon is just plain idiocy. Let Mr. Vanderkamp try to live on a $10-an-hour job for awhile, and then let him make the same observations.

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